Little Bits

I belong to one of the greatest little quilting groups ever!  We call ourselves the Little Bits because our primary focus used to be miniature quilts.  It still is, to a certain extent, but now we also do a "little bit" of everything!

We get together once a month in someone's home, usually Annie's (she started the group a dozen years ago or so).  We usually learn a new technique via a demonstration by someone else in the group or sometimes a special guest teacher.  We always have show and tell and we always have a LOT of fun!

Three times a year we also have a luncheon, once to celebrate Christmas where we exchange gifts with a secret sister, once to celebrate winter birthdays and once to celebrate summer birthdays (none of us have spring or fall birthdays!)

This year we all had such a busy summer that we just finally today got around to celebrating the summer birthdays.  From left to right are: Bobbi, Mary (seated), June, Max and myself.  Not able to attend today were Sherida, Lori and Lois, who also have summer birthdays.  Only three in the group have winter birthdays - Annie, Leota and Eleanor all seated at the table above.  Today we celebrated at Leota's house with a beautiful view of the valley and a delicious luncheon of fresh fruits and vegetables and freshly baked rolls - and a birthday cake, of course, provided by Max.

Our show and tell wasn't huge today, not as big as usual anyway.  I guess we've all been outdoors more.  Leota showed us the wool table runner she almost has finished with beautiful columbine flowers on it.  She bought the pattern from Laura at Laura's Home.

I once demonstrated back-basting hand appliqué and Annie has just taken that method and ran with it!  She does beautiful appliqué using this back-basting method.  And her hand quilting is amazing.  She recently had a large quilt in the Montrose Quilt Show, which was all hand appliquéd and hand quilted.  It was stunning.  This Blue Jay is a recent appliqué project she finished.  It is hand quilted as well.  The white tips on the wings were bleached to get the natural blended look from the blue fabric.

We always have to get up close and personal with these quilts to see the amazing work!

Annie has several quilt tops finished and ready to quilt.  She plans to hand quilt these as well.  Above is a Dresden Plate (skirt) Sunbonnet Sue, machine pieced and hand appliquéd, and a cupcake quilt (to the right), also machine pieced and hand appliquéd (with rick rack inserted between two layers of appliqué.)

To the left is an ice cream cone quilt top.  She was making us all hungry today!




The rest of us will have to get busy and show something next month :)

Here is a miniature quilt that Annie finished as well.  Did I mention that she is 85 years old?  She is amazing, this woman, and a nicer person you will not meet.

A FUN group and a delightful afternoon!  Tomorrow I plan to work on my Market Fresh quilt - getting ready for a class I will be taking at Hi Fashion next week.  I dug out all my Kaffe Fassett fabrics and I am REALLY excited about this quilt.  I had planned to give it away, but I am so excited about it that I am thinking perhaps that murphy bed needs a quilt....